Friday, April 29, 2016

"Bloomberg Outs Zero Hedge Today; Zero Hedge Strikes Back"

From Wall Street On Parade:

Bloomberg L.P., majority owned by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, with a net worth of $45.3 billion according to Forbes, has today outed the anonymous writers responsible for the popular financial blog, Zero Hedge, a competitor
to Bloomberg L.P.’s financial web site. Raising eyebrows in journalism
circles, Bloomberg’s reporters obtained the text of internal chat
sessions at Zero Hedge which contained strategies for building traffic
at the site. To some, that raises alarms of obtaining trade secrets – an
issue over which Wall Street firms have sought, and received, criminal
prosecutions.

Also noteworthy, the article’s authors, Tracy Alloway and Luke Kawa,
seem to take aim at the financial comfort of the people behind the blog,
while failing to mention that their boss is the 8th richest
person in the world, whose wealth intricately derives from the industry
they cover. During Michael Bloomberg’s 12 year stint in public office as
Mayor of New York City, his wealth mushroomed more than ten-fold,
growing from $3 billion to $31 billion according to Forbes. The sine qua
non of the former Mayor’s wealth stems from those iconic Bloomberg
Terminals which cost approximately $24,000 a year each and populate, to
the tune of hundreds of thousands of terminals, the expansive trading
floors of Wall Street and global banks.

According to the Bloomberg article, three men have been churning out
all of the content at Zero Hedge, using the joint pseudonym “Tyler
Durden” from the Brad Pitt film “Fight Club.” The 1999 cult film, according to Rolling Stone,
is “about being young, male and powerless against the pacifying drug of
consumerism. It’s about solitude, despair and bottled-up rage.” That
ethos is frequently on display at Zero Hedge.

The three “Tyler Durdens” outed by Bloomberg reporters are Colin
Lokey, who has now left Zero Hedge in a fit of pique and is responsible
for handing over the internal chat sessions from Zero Hedge on
traffic-building strategies and other matters. Bloomberg says “the other
two men are Daniel Ivandjiiski, 37, the Bulgarian-born former
analyst long reputed to be behind the site, and Tim Backshall, 45,
a well-known credit derivatives strategist.”

The article notes that “Ivandjiiski has a multimillion-dollar mansion
in Mahwah, N.J., and Backshall lives in a plush San Francisco suburb,”
suggesting these are “not exactly reflections” of the anti-capitalism
reflected in the moniker “Tyler Durden.”...MORE